Monday in Kyoto

Today is Charles' birthday! After breakfast at the hotel we caught the Shinkansen to Kyoto - it only took 40 minutes! We dropped our bags off at the hotel and caught a bus out to Nanzen-Ji temple which is the beginning of the philosophers' walk. As we walked we saw lots of cute antique kimono shops And people out in traditional outfits. I guess they were celebrating the start of spring? We had delicious soba noodles for lunch and enjoyed the peaceful walk. On the lane to ginkaku-Ji we saw a shop selling fuurin - Japanese wind bells. We have some that we like as percussion instruments but we found particularly low pitched bell with a nice tone which we bought. Ginkaku Ji was very nice and is still Charles' favourite temple in Kyoto.

We got the bus back to our hotel - the buses are a bit different in Japan and since there are english announcements and labels in Kyoto we think we've just about worked out how to use them - on our third visit to the city. You take a ticket when you get on labelled with the stop and pay with exact change when you get off according to an electronic chart. If you don't have exact change there's a change machine that can exchange any monetary unit down by one order so you can keep using it until you have the right amount. Luckily all Japanese currency is divisible by each lower order so it is a perfect system. Phew!

We went back to the hotel for a rest and Christina found that her DS had discovered lots of new friends. Cool! Dinner was at our favourite fast food place which we rediscovered up the street. Christina got a HUGE piece of fish and extra soup which was unnecessary. We thought about just going home but Christina realised that a Lolita shop was closing in half an hour and wasn't open tomorrow so we trekked up to the Teramachi-Dori arcades to have a look. Charles reckoned the swan/hedge maze print would have gone down well at boys' Grammar but Christina wasn't convinced.

We walked up the street and found a music shop where Christina found Charles a nice birthday present and we turned around to go home. On the way back we stopped at a coffee shop for a cake and Christina surprised everybody by pulling out some "29" candles. What a lovely wife she is! On the way home we picked up a Japanese nightcap at the 7-11. A weak Ume-shu (plum - liqueur) with soda and a "Highball" which was a whiskey and soda in a can. Bath time and bed in the lovely Japanese style room!

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